The Marriage of William Ashe

Last updated

The Marriage of William Ashe
The Marriage of William Ashe Frontispiece 1904.jpg
"Lady Kitty Bristol", frontispiece to novel
Author Mary Augusta Ward
Illustrator Albert Sterner
CountryEngland and United States
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
Publisher Harper & Bros.
Publication date
March 1905
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages563

The Marriage of William Ashe is a novel by Mary Augusta Ward that was the best-selling novel in the United States in 1905. [1] [2] It originally appeared in serial form in Harper's Magazine from June 1904 through May 1905, and was published in book form in March 1905. [3] Illustrations were provided by Albert Sterner. [4] [5]

Contents

The novel is loosely based on the lives of statesman William Lamb Melbourne and his eccentric wife Lady Caroline Lamb.

Plot

The novel is a story of English social and political life. William Ashe is a rich, handsome, and successful politician, and heir to the title of Earl of Tranmore. Ashe falls for Lady Kitty Bristol, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Madam d'Estrees, whose charm draws many influential men and overcomes any questions about her reputation. Ashe proposes to her just three weeks after they meet, and she accepts though she warns him that her temper and uncontrollable nature may cause him to regret asking.

Three years later, the couple are settled in London, with Kitty heavily involved in the London social scene. They have one son, who is physically disabled. Kitty's social activities start to affect Ashe's political career; she strains Ashe's relationship with Lord Parham, the prime minister, and also flirts with the dashing but unprincipled Geoffrey Cliffe. After their child dies, Kitty is left a physical wreck and goes with Ashe to Italy to try to recover her health. Kitty meets Cliffe in Italy and runs off with him, while Ashe is in England trying to suppress a salacious book Kitty has written. Two years later, Ashe comes upon Kitty unexpectedly at a small inn in the Alps. Kitty has had many hardships, but dies in the comfort of Ashe's presence. [6]

Adaptations

Lobby cards for the 1921 American film. The Marriage of William Ashe.jpg
Lobby cards for the 1921 American film.

Margaret Mayo adapted the novel into a play which debuted on Broadway at the Garrick Theatre in November 1905 featuring Grace George and H. Reeves-Smith, and produced by George's husband William A. Brady. [7] [8]

It was first adapted to film in a 1916 British production directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Henry Ainley as William Ashe and Alma Taylor as Kitty Bristol. A 1921 American silent film adaptation was directed by Edward Sloman and featured Wyndham Standing as Ashe and May Allison as Bristol. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Booth Tarkington</span> American novelist (1869–1946)

Newton Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921). He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead. In the 1910s and 1920s he was considered the United States' greatest living author. Several of his stories were adapted to film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gladys Cooper</span> British actress

Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, was an English actress, theatrical manager and producer, whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Brady</span> American actress (1892–1939)

Alice Brady was an American actress who began her career in the silent film era and survived the transition into talkies. She worked until six months before her death from cancer in 1939. Her films include My Man Godfrey (1936), in which she plays the flighty mother of Carole Lombard's character, and In Old Chicago (1937) for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Augusta Ward</span> British novelist (1851–1920)

Mary Augusta Ward was a British novelist who wrote under her married name as Mrs Humphry Ward. She worked to improve education for the poor setting up a Settlement in London and in 1908 she became the founding President of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Hopkins Adams</span> American investigative journalist (1871–1958)

Samuel Hopkins Adams was an American writer who was an investigative journalist and muckraker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gertrude Atherton</span> American author (1857–1948)

Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton was an American writer. Many of her novels are set in her home state of California. Her bestseller Black Oxen (1923) was made into a silent movie of the same name. In addition to novels, she wrote short stories, essays, and articles for magazines and newspapers on such issues as feminism, politics, and war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucille La Verne</span> American actress

Lucille La Verne Mitchum was an American actress known for her appearances in early sound films, as well as for her triumphs on the American stage. She is most widely remembered as the voices of the Old Witch in the 1932 Silly Symphony short, Babes in the Woods, and the first Disney villain, the Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Walt Disney's first full-length animated feature film as well as her final film role.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Doro</span> American actress

Marie Doro was an American stage and film actress of the early silent film era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold MacGrath</span> American novelist, screenwriter

Harold MacGrath was a bestselling and prolific American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He sometimes completed more than one novel per year for the mass market, covering romance, spies, mystery, and adventure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fannie Ward</span> American actress (1872–1952)

Fannie Ward, also credited as Fanny Ward, was an American actress of stage and screen. Known for performing in both comedic and dramatic roles, she was cast in The Cheat, a sexually-charged 1915 silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Reportedly, Ward's ageless appearance helped her to achieve and maintain her celebrity. In its obituary for her, The New York Times describes her as "an actress who never quite reached the top in her profession ... [and who] tirelessly devoted herself to appearing perpetually youthful, an act that made her famous".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmel Myers</span> American actress

Carmel Myers was an American actress who achieved her greatest successes in silent film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Faye</span> American actress

Julia Faye Maloney, known professionally as Julia Faye, was an American actress of silent and sound films. She was known for her appearances in more than 30 Cecil B. DeMille productions. Her various roles ranged from maids and ingénues to vamps and queens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">May Allison</span> American actress (1890–1989)

May Allison was an American actress whose greatest success was achieved in the early part of the 20th century in silent films, although she also appeared on stage.

Henry Martyn Blossom, Jr. was an American writer, playwright, novelist, opera librettist, and lyricist. He first gained wide attention for his second novel, Checkers: A Hard Luck Story (1896), which was successfully adapted by Blossom into a 1903 Broadway play, Checkers. It was Blossom's first stage work and his first critical success in the theatre. The play in turn was adapted by others creatives into two silent films, one in 1913 and the other in 1919, and the play was the basis for the 1920 Broadway musical Honey Girl. Checkers was soon followed by Blossom's first critical success as a lyricist, the comic opera The Yankee Consul (1903), on which he collaborated with fellow Saint Louis resident and composer Alfred G. Robyn. This work was also adapted into a silent film in 1921. He later collaborated with Robyn again; writing the book and lyrics for their 1912 musical All for the Ladies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viña Delmar</span> American dramatist

Viña Delmar was an American short story writer, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who worked from the 1920s to the 1970s. She rose to fame in the late 1920s with the publication of her suggestively titled novel, Bad Girl, which became a bestseller in 1928. Delmar also wrote the screenplay to the screwball comedy, The Awful Truth, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in 1937.

Frederick J. Jackson, also known professionally as Fred Jackson and Frederick Jackson and under the pseudonym Victor Thorne, was an American author, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and producer for both stage and film. A prolific writer of short stories and serialized novels, most of his non-theatre works were published in pulp magazines such as Detective Story Magazine and Argosy. Many of these stories were adapted into films by other writers.

<i>The Squaw Man</i> (play)

The Squaw Man is a 1905 western/drama stage play in four acts written by Edwin Milton Royle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kitty Gordon</span>

Kitty Gordon was an English stage and silent film actress.

<i>The Marriage of William Ashe</i> (1921 film) 1921 film

The Marriage of William Ashe is a lost 1921 American silent film directed by Edward Sloman and starring May Allison. It was produced and distributed by Metro Pictures. It is based on the 1905 British novel The Marriage of William Ashe by Mary Augusta Ward and its subsequent play adaptation by Margaret Mayo.

The Marriage of William Ashe is a 1916 British silent drama film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Henry Ainley, Alma Taylor and Stewart Rome. It is an adaptation of the 1905 novel The Marriage of William Ashe by Mary Augusta Ward.

References

  1. (March 8, 1905). Books of the Day - The Marriage of William Ashe, Boston Evening Transcript
  2. Hackett, Alice Payne (1945). Fifty Years of Best Sellers, 1895-1945. New York: R.R. Bowker Co., p. 21.
  3. (February 4, 1905). The Marriage of William Ashe, The New York Times
  4. (May 15, 1945). Anything to Oblige Disapproving Author, Milwaukee Journal
  5. (March 11, 1905). Mrs. Ward's New Book - "The Marriage of William Ashe" is another "Novel of Reincarnation", The New York Times
  6. Warner, Charles Dudley, ed. Warner's synopsis of books ancient and modern, Vol. II, 584 (1910 edition)
  7. (November 22, 1905). Mrs. Ward's Novel on the Stage As A Play, The New York Times
  8. (February 11, 1906). The Marriage of William Ashe, Minneapolis Journal, p. 14, col. 2.
  9. American Film Institute Catalog - Feature Films 1921-1930, p. 495 (1971)